It's not that simple

[Marcus Knight]

Ry needed time to disconnect and to work through his feelings, and rightly so. Making rushed decisions wasn't good for anybody, especially not at the height of hurt. Marc knew that all too well—how hurt could make people lash out, make them want to hurt others. It never worked, though; the pain wasn't going away through any act of revenge.

He didn't know anything about Ry's guy, so he couldn't say what would happen. And Ry didn't know Namgi, either, although... neither did Marc apparently. He grinned a small, wry grin and steered Ry into the liquor store.

"C'mon. More booze!"

Inside, he grabbed onto the first two bottles he saw and swung them off the shelf. "Lemme get this. I just got paid, so." He was going to use that money to fly out to see his boyfriend, but he supposed that he didn't need it anymore. Marc's grip on the bottles tightened; he wanted to start gulping them down right then and there.

"You want anything else, bring 'em to the cashier. I'm gonna pay for these first." He veered off to pay for the bottles—and got carded, which drew a grimace. Marc had to search for his driver's license and the guy still gave him a suspicious look, but let him purchase the booze anyway. Then and there, he popped the cap of one and started guzzling it down.

[Ryland Ren]

In Ryland's current state, he wasn't terribly picky about what he drank. So he walked up and down the aisles, lifting bottles, inspecting them, rejecting them, and moving on until he had a handful himself. Bringing them up front to get paid for, he also side eyed Marc, who somehow passed being carded. He looked young, now that Ryland gave him a real look. But that didn't much matter, did it? His age. Age could be so deceptive in a world full of vampires and such.

"Let's go," Ryland said, clutching his bottles as if they were going to be stolen from him. He wasn't sure where they were going next. The park, he thought, but then... There was a reason they left it and it didn't just have to do with the fact that it was abandoned and darkness was falling.

"Do you live near here?" Ryland asked. "If not, I think I'm calling Lyft..."

[Marcus Knight]

"Um. My place." Marc was working his way through the bottle and it was going to his head. He swayed a little as he tried to think about where they were in relation to his apartment. A temporary place of residence, really, that he rented month to month in the hopes that the job would finish up... and he could go fly out to his love.

Fat chance of that happening now though.

"Yeah it's like. Down that way." He waved a hand in an arbitrary direction. "Just uh. Call the Lyft maybe. And we can go. I live alone so it's fine."

[Ryland Ren]

"All right..." Ryland slowly walked down the path down to where there was a little old wrought iron bench with wooden slats for seats. It wasn't comfortable but he sat down and pulled out his phone. Lately, he wasn't that excited when he heard his phone go off. He knew it wasn't going to be Aldon. And if it was, it would just be more heartache. Sighing, he pulled Lyft up quickly since they were right there in the front page of apps.

Once he got one confirmed, he set his phone down on his knee and looked up at Marc.

"You're already hitting the bottle harder than me," he mused. Ryland was just a bit tipsy at this point. When Marc found him, he had been slowly drinking his way through a bottle, nursing his melancholy and maybe wallowing a bit. Ugh, he hated wallowing. Normally Aldon was the wallower. Ryland frowned and looked down.

"You're not looking for something... are you?" He peered up again. "From me... I mean."

[Marcus Knight]

BOOZE

It did what it was supposed to—make him a little numb, sheltered him a bit from the harsh reality of... reality. Eh. Thoughts didn't filter through so easily with half a bottle in him, he had to admit. A little drunkenly, he sat down heavily beside Ry and set the bottle down between them in case Ry felt like taking a swig.

"What?" Marc laughed a little louder than he meant to. "Like—like hook up?"

Man. If only. If ONLY he was that type. It would've made this whole affair easier to swallow, actually, if he knew what drove Namgi to sleep with those other guys. Marc had never done IT before. He'd been touched, and he'd touched another, but actual sex didn't happen.

In his 'open' relationship, it was more of an emotional connection type deal and less of a sexual thing. Before that developed into anything physical, things got complicated and it all fell apart. In that aspect, he thought that Ry was much better off not dabbling in that whole three-person relationship thing.

Sadly, he looked down at his phone. He'd sorta tried talking to Namgi, off and on. Drunkenly. No time like the present, right? Plus, Ry told him he should try one more time—probably while sober but meh. Sober Marc might not be brave enough to try.

"Are you?" He looked up at Ry curiously. Ry was so good-looking that it was impossible to imagine anybody ditching him. Looks weren't everything, but... man. That other guy really didn't know a good thing when he saw it.

[Ryland Ren]

HAHA. Yes, a hookup. Maybe. Ryland didn't know. They were drinking together, they were both recently single, they were both in the dumps about their exes, and they were both consenting adults. So... why not? Ryland wanted the companionship of another warm body. Maybe that was why he didn't stay single for very long, no matter how often he and Aldon split up and got back together again. It was the same old cycle replaying itself only this time, he knew it wasn't going to. Not this time. Things were different. Now it was Aldon off with somebody else but it wasn't just some hookup.

Aldon was in love with somebody else.

And it hurt so much to realize it. With every breath he took, it rasped in his heart, it tore another layer away from his oh-so-cool facade. Look at him. Hanging out in old playgrounds nowhere near where he lived in downtown Hazleton. No, he was in a place where he'd played as a child, back before the weeds choked the life out of everything, before the rust paralyzed everything that once moved.

The playground was Ryland. That was what it felt like, when he was lying there alone with that bottle. Now he wasn't so alone. But the laugh. It sounded like a mockery and Ryland felt his face burn.

"Never mind," he said, brushing it off. He was in no mood to let somebody he barely knew even try to chip away at what was left of his heart. No way was he going out on a limb for him. Haha... so funny. Hook ups. When did he become so pathetic, anyway?

"There's the Lyft now," he said, indicating a red truck coming down the path. He grabbed his drinks and made sure Marc had his too. "Your place, right?"

[Marcus Knight]

Marc laughed because it shocked him to think that Ry wanted to hook up—HOOK UP—with him, a stranger he'd met all of about twenty minutes ago. That seemed like the kinda silly decision only a drunk person in a lot of pain would make. Like when Marc got drunk and decided that he wanted to order and then eat two whole pizzas and a side of chicken strips and fries, only to end up puking everything out an hour later. Like that kind of terrible decision.

He saw the way that Ry's face fell and felt badly, but by then the Lyft had arrived and he was busy scrambling into the back of the truck with Ry. After giving the driver his address, they rumbled off and Marc looked over at Ry again. A little hesitantly, he shifted closer and curled an arm through Ry's arm.

"I've never... hooked up with anybody before," he confided in a whisper, resting his chin on Ry's shoulder. Marc knew that Ry wouldn't judge him. And he was tipsy, too, so the lips were looser and there were no inhibitions to tell him to shut the heck up about his lack of experience. At least he wasn't telling all of this to the Lyft guy!

"I was saving... you know, IT... for somebody I love. For Namgi I guess. And I dunno... people hook up all the time. Namgi said he only did it cause he wanted someone to sleep with and they didn't mean anything but that's... I'd be okay with it if he loved the other guy... I think." Marc turned his head so that his cheek nuzzled Ry's shoulder.

"They didn't even mean anything..." That part hurt the most. Something so valuable and meaningful couldn't be thrown around like that, he thought. Maybe Namgi was right—maybe he was old-fashioned and antiquated (heh) but he couldn't help the way he felt. Love was in short supply while he was growing up, so he held it in higher esteem than most. And having found it, it meant a lot more to Marc; he didn't want to take it for granted.

Ry was precious too. Too precious to be throwing himself at just anybody, just on a whim, without knowing them or liking them beyond the physical attraction. That didn't sound fulfilling—it wasn't a replacement for the relationship and the love that he'd lost. That was the two pizzas and chicken strips and fries, the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" talking.

"I'm not saying... it'd be wasted on you though. You're—you look like you coulda stepped out of a magazine. You're the kinda guy I might fall in love with if we spent enough time togther, I think." He squeezed Ry's arm with his hands, gently. "But I... I still love him. You know? I'm SUPER mad, but I still love him and maybe if I wait it out a little bit longer... and-and if I stand my ground, he might change his mind."

Absently, a flash of movement outside the window caught his eye. An RV streaked past—well, streaked was an exaggeration, it sort of lumbered in and out of view. Who would be rumbling into town this late at night, Marc thought. He watched it rolling out of sight, and caught a momentary glimpse of a pale face peering out anxiously from a small round side window.

[Ryland Ren]

"Hm..." Ryland believed him, about not hooking up before. Marc didn't look like the type. Maybe Ryland didn't either, he didn't know how others perceived him. But he'd only hooked up a handful of times. As in, he could count the number of times on one hand. But they still happened. And there were still the short-lived relationships where Ryland searched for what he'd lost with Aldon, only to have Aldon come rudely coming back, somehow. Some way. He always seemed to uproot everything Ryland knew and throw it all into disarray. He was right, he thought, in telling him goodbye for good this time. Alva probably would have agreed. Yoojin, too.

Ryland hadn't said much about anything to anybody though. Talking about it was like admitting it was true, that it really happened and some part of him wanted it to remain an awful nightmare.

"Didn't mean anything," Ryland echoed quietly, tilting his head slightly toward Marc and listening to him. It was kinda admirable that Marc held onto his virginity so that it would be special. He was right; too many people just hooked up. But that was their prerogative and Ryland wasn't one to condemn somebody else's choices when they didn't impact him. It was just kind of sad, sometimes, when he slowed down enough to think about it.

Sex was sex, though. Sex and love... They got so tangled up sometimes. But they really weren't the same thing at all, were they? It was difficult to feel anything when there was no chemistry, no spark, no love there. Affection was important to the process, so he thought he understood where a guy like Marc was coming from.

The squeeze on his arm made him crack a smile, as if Marc was trying to assure him he was lovable. Ryland looked at him and lightly touched the top of Marc's head.

"It's okay. I get it. But... what part are you trying to change his mind about? Do you think he's going to keep sleeping with other guys while he's in a relationship with you?"

[Marcus Knight]

"Yeah," Marc admitted softly, nodding. "I don't know. I don't know him. I thought I did, and I assumed he'd wait for me like I waited for him, but he's... not that kind of person."

This was why long-distance relationships didn't always work out. They met online and fell in love with the online version of each other, but that version wasn't true to life. In reality, in the workplace, they clashed horribly. Their personalities and viewpoints didn't match up.

It was too easy to portray himself a certain way online, too. Marc wanted Namgi to know the best of himself, without telling him about the worst. The same applied in reverse, probably. He saw so much that he loved--thought he loved.

It wasn't a total wash-out, though. It wasn't impossible to salvage their relationship, but starting over felt almost tedious.

"He--he's coming over though! To my place." Marc buried his face in Ry's shoulder and clung to him. "Is that a bad idea? I feel like it's a bad idea. I dunno why I did it!" He muffled a scream. "Why'd I do it?!"

[Ryland Ren]

Ryland patted Marc's knee to console him, a half smile, half grimace on his face. Boy, did he know about getting romantically involved with somebody from online. It was a rather short lived thing and Ryland thought he loved him--that guy he met online--but once they actually met the chemistry actually lacked. Ryland tried but he couldn't seem to muster up the same feelings he had for the person he imagined the other man was. He wondered if Marc was going through something like that. A man that was everything he imagined but only turned out to be... well, real.

"Wait, what?" Ryland blinked a couple of times, a little shocked that Marc went from hating the guy and drinking to that hate to suddenly telling Ryland that the guy was coming over to his place. Ooh. Awkward.

"Oh," Ryland said. Maybe they were going to try and make up. Ryland bit his lower lip and lightly patted Marc's knee again. "No, no. It's not a bad idea. Maybe you guys will resolve everything once you're in person."

But now Ryland didn't really... want to be there, necessarily. That would just be weird.

"You do that, okay? We'll drop you off and I'll go on to my own place. I think... it would be weird for me to be there. It might cause problems, actually."

[Marcus Knight]

And maybe we won't resolve everything! Marc thought privately to himself, only he didn't say it because Ry was trying hard to be nice (after Marc laughed at him for the hook up thing). He wished that it was easy for him to jump straight to sex with somebody. He could've maybe gone for Ry.

There was something about him, something different from the rest of the guys that Marc knew. If he had to guess, Ry might have been one of them—one of the supernaturals. Marc knew all about them, of course; his best friend was a vampire and the tiny marks on his throat that he'd hidden with his jacket collar was testament to that.

He clung fervently to Ry's arm, as if Ry would leap out of the truck, do a roll onto the sidewalk and sprint off into the darkness. "But-but what if it's weird? What if I hate him again when we meet up?"

Granted, Namgi was a lot less abrasive when he was just... normal. When he spoke like a normal person—albeit an old grandpa normal person—instead of using that condescending TONE of his that Marc hated. The tone that suggested Marc was a piss-ant in the face of his superior knowledge.

"I need support!!"

[Ryland Ren]

"Trust me," Ryland said. "It'll be weird, but only for a little bit. Once you guys get past what's been bothering you both, things should smooth themselves out. If you both really care... love each other... trust me."

Look, he began his little chat with trust me--and ended it with the same thing. How could Marc help but trust him? Yes, trust the guy who couldn't even get his own love life under control... But he still felt like he had more experience than Marc and when it came to these awkward encounters, he had plenty of experience. Things would be weird while they untangled their emotions but once things smoothed over, they would be in love again and that would be the only part that mattered.

They were coming up to the address Marc had given and Ryland lightly tried to unhook Marc's hand from his arm.

"You'll be fine on your own, promise."

[Marcus Knight]

"But—" They were coming up to his apartment now and Marc was still nervously clutching onto Ry. He did trust Ry, funnily enough, despite knowing him for less than an hour. That didn't mean anything though, not when they had bonded over their mutual losses. (And in Marc's case, maybe a gain?)

He finally did let go, as the truck slowed. "At least—phone me when you get home okay? I wanna know you get back safe! And... let's hang out some other time! When we're not drunk." Marc cracked a nervous smile—not because he thought Ry would tell him to piss off, but because his anxiety at seeing Namgi alone seeped into every other emotion and thought.

After giving Ry his number, he leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Thanks! For—everything! Don't forget, lemme know when you get home!" Marc pushed one of his bottles of booze at Ry, smiled nervously again and then waved him good-bye as the truck roared off into the night.

And then. He was alone. And he was dreading the moment when he opened the door of his apartment, but he couldn't run off, either. Marc took the stairs just to have time to settle himself down, and finally eased open his front door like he thought a bear might be lurking behind it, waiting to swipe at him.

[Gil Namgi]

Walking through the quiet apartment, Namgi's expression remained with eyebrows upward. If one saw the way he lived, it would be apparent why he looked at it in such horror. Namgi lived almost in a Spartan-like way. Minimalistic, they called it these days. Everything he owned could be accounted for and he knew exactly where to find anything that made its way into his humble apartment.

This... this was unacceptable. Even to walk through it. After a moment, Namgi began to pick things up. Was it so hard for this cup to find its way to the sink to be washed or this piece of trash to make it to the rubbish bin? Really. It was exasperating. Namgi mostly found this was a young person thing. Young people thought their time was so precious that they didn't want to "waste" it on mundane things like cleaning. Having lived as long as he had, Namgi could no longer understand that mindset, despite having lived there once.

He was in the kitchen washing dishes when he finally heard the click of the front door.

"Finally," Namgi muttered to himself before he called: "I'm in the kitchen!"

[Marcus Knight]

There was no bear, which was good. But there were Sounds coming from inside, which was unsettling. Marc ventured inside and toed off his shoes, laying them neatly down onto the shoe rack. His shoes were the only things that he took meticulous and obsessive care of. Like most young people his age, he collected them--the new releases, the name brands, the limited editions. It was a weird flex, maybe, but hey, he liked what he liked.

"...are you doing my dishes?" he asked as soon as he entered the kitchen. After having picked up around the apartment. It was... it was kinda creepy. Not in a bad way, just in a really unexpected way. Did the mess bother Namgi that much? Marc didn't think he was a pig, though. If Namgi could have seen the way that he grew up, in that tiny cramped trailer with his dad, he would've understood that this was clean for Marc.

"Um. I... I'll dry."

That was the only thing he could think of to do, aside from standing around and staring. Marc grabbed a dry dish towel from the handle of the oven door--yes, it doubled as a towel rack, sue him--and started swabbing a plate with it. "Soo..." He chanced a peek over at Namgi. This was the guy who used to resent him for existing. And now, Namgi was doing his dishes. Bizarre.

"You're a neat freak, huh?"